Last Wednesday, the Lithuanian Ministry of Health issued an unequivocal directive to Jalgiris Kaunas - cancel your home game against Armani Milan or hold it without an audience.

Lithuania's champion, where basketball is the most important thing in the country, informed the ministry that they are subject to the Euroleague guidelines and that there is no such thing as "sports without a crowd." In fact, 9,500 viewers (out of 15,000 who purchased a ticket) did not comply with the Lithuanian Ministry of Health requirements - and came to watch the game. The other day, here in Israel, Maccabi Tel Aviv rose to the floor and "Poplar" on the Ministry of Health guidelines given this afternoon.

In the running and debating whether to get an audience into the game against Anadolu Zero in Yad Eliyahu, the bigger question is about his very existence. The Yellows, who had returned from Spain 11 days earlier, and the Turks, who played in Germany last week, should have been in isolation and not have the match between them.

One of Shimon Mizrahi's guiding principles throughout his years in Maccabi is the holding of the games in Tel Aviv. He returned the games to the city at the end of the Gulf War, and fought hard to hold the Final Four in Yad Eliyahu in 2004, despite European protests. The "red color" alarms heard in the Tel Aviv sky before the games against Malaga in November 2012 and Anadolu in March 2019 did not penetrate the hall's concrete, so what is the concern about the Corona virus or clear instructions from the Ministry of Health?

But the problem is not the Tel Aviv Maccabi, but the global sports authorities, whose principle is "the show must go on." It doesn't have to. Sport is a form of adorable pastime. If concerts, concerts, exhibitions and museums close - the sport can also go into isolation. It is not a matter of mental supervision here, so sport does not repel Corona.

post Scriptum. One of the Maccabi people in the past whispered to me yesterday: "What exactly do they want from them? After all, there are strangers out there: the professional manager, the coaching staff and the vast majority of the team players. They don't know how to read instructions in Hebrew, so play. "